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The English poet Christopher Smart (1722–1771) was confined to mental asylums from May 1757 until January 1763. Smart was admitted into St Luke's Hospital for Lunatics, Bethnal Green, London, on 6 May 1757. He was taken there by his father-in-law, John Newbery, although he may have been confined in a private madhouse before then. While in St Luke's he wrote ''Jubilate Agno'' and ''A Song to David'', the poems considered to be his greatest works. Although many of his contemporaries agreed that Smart was "mad", accounts of his condition and its ramifications varied, and some felt that he had been committed unfairly. Smart was diagnosed as "incurable" while at St Luke's, and when they ran out of funds for his care he was moved to Mr. Potter's asylum. All that is known of his years of confinement is that he wrote poetry. Smart's isolation led him to abandon the poetic genres of the 18th century that had marked his earlier work and to write religious poetry such as ''Jubilate Agno'' ("Rejoice in the Lamb"). His asylum poetry reveals a desire for "unmediated revelation", and it is possible that the self-evaluation found in his poetry represents an expression of evangelical Christianity. Late 18th-century critics felt that Smart's madness justified them in ignoring his ''A Song to David'', but during the following century Robert Browning and his contemporaries considered his condition to be the source of his genius. It was not until the 20th century, with the rediscovery of ''Jubilate Agno'' (not published until 1939), that critics reconsidered Smart's case and began to see him as a revolutionary poet, the possible target of a plot by his father-in-law, a publisher, to silence him. ==Background== Christopher Smart was an English poet who was confined to asylums during a time of debate about the nature of madness and its treatment. During the 18th century, madness was "both held to reveal inner truth and condemned to silence and exclusion as something unintelligible by reason, and therefore threatening to society and to humanity".〔Smith and Sweeny 1997 p. 16〕 It was commonly held to be an incurable affliction whose sufferers should be isolated from society.〔Keymer 2003 p. 144〕 Physician William Battie—who later treated Smart—wrote: () find that Madness is, contrary to the opinion of some unthinking persons, as manageable as many other distempers, which are equally dreadful and obstinate, and yet are not looked upon as incurable, and that such unhappy objects ought by no means to be abandoned, much less shut up in loathsome prisons as criminals or nuisances to the society.〔Battie 1758 p. 93〕 In particular, Battie defined madness as "deluded imagination".〔Mounsey 2001 p. 209〕 However, he was attacked by other physicians, such as John Monro, who worked at Bethlem Hospital.〔 In his ''Remarks on Dr. Battie's Treatise on Madness'', Monro explained that those who were mad had the correct perceptions, but that they lacked the ability to judge properly. Although Monro promoted ideas of reform, his suggested treatment—beating patients—was as harsh on patients as Battie's preferred option, of completely isolating patients from society.〔 In 1758, Battie and others argued that those deemed "mad" were abused under the British asylum system, and they pushed for parliamentary action. Battie's ''Treatise on Madness'' emphasised the problems of treating the hospitals as tourist attractions and the punitive measures taken against patients. The arguments of Battie and others resulted in the passage of the Act for Regulating Private Madhouses (1774), but were too late to help Smart.〔Keymer 2003 pp. 184–185〕 Modern critics, however, have a more cynical view of the 18th-century use of the term "madness" when diagnosing patients; psychiatrist Thomas Szasz viewed the idea of madness as arbitrary and unnatural.〔Szasz 1972 pp. xv–xvi〕 Agreeing with Szasz's position, philosopher Michel Foucault emphasised that asylums were used in the 18th century to attack dissenting views and that the idea of madness was a cultural fear held by the British public, rather than a legitimate medical condition.〔Foucault 1989 pp. 38–64〕 In particular, Foucault considered the 18th century a time of "great confinement".〔Foucault 1989 p. 6〕 This description is consistent with Smart's 1760s writings on the subject in which, according to Thomas Keymer, "the category of madness is insistently relativized, and made to seem little more than the invention of a society strategically concerned to discredit all utterances or conduct that threatens its interests and norms."〔Keymer 2003 p. 183〕 18th century treatment of inpatients was simple: they were to be fed daily a light diet of bread, oatmeal, some meat or cheese, and a little amount of beer, which were inadequate in meeting daily nutritional needs;〔Mounsey 2001 p. 205〕 they were denied contact with outsiders, including family members;〔 and they would be denied access to that which was deemed to be the cause of their madness (these causes ranged from alcohol and food to working outside).〔Mounsey 2001 p. 204〕 If their actions appeared "afresh and without assignable cause", then their condition would be labelled as "original" madness and deemed incurable.〔 An institution like St Luke's, run by Battie, held both "curable" and "incurable" patients.〔Mounsey 2001 p. 206〕 There were few spots available for patients to receive free treatment, and many were released after a year to make room for new admittances.〔Mounsey 2001 p. 207〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Christopher Smart's asylum confinement」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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